Page 114 of Beauty and the Daddy

I shift Sofia behind me in one fluid motion, my body becoming a wall between her and the monster wearing a family face.

"Hello, Belle." His smile could freeze hell. "You've caused quite a stir tonight. Time to clean up the mess."

LUCA

My brother's gone, and the guards don't have eyes on him.

And to make matters worse, my Belle is out there playing bait for a snake who just slithered off his rock.

Yeah, this plan's going real fucking smooth.

"Find him. Now," I growl at Conor, who's looking at me like he's ready to piss himself.

He scurries away like I set his ass on fire.

Declan took the bait, alright. Just not the way we planned.

He was supposed to come after me first—challenge me to my face, man to man, brother to brother.

If not that, we had eyes outside Belle's room for if he went looking for her.

Those were the moves that made sense and the ones we prepared for.

But Declan doesn't play by rules that make sense, does he?

No, he plays by the ones that cut deepest.

Marco's voice cuts once through the radio—"North stairwell—" then nothing.

Like someone put a hand over his mouth and dragged him into a wall.

I stand in my own office and feel the floor tilt.

My comms, usually a quiet hum of men reporting angles and breaths and heartbeat-level updates, turn into dead air and a hiss.

I feel the hair on the back of my neck prickle. Something's off. Way off.

Whatever plans and instructions I'd given, they no longer apply.

If Declan's going rogue, then to hell with my blueprints.

"Marco, talk to me." I'm sprinting the corridor now, reaching for the gun under my jacket.

Static answers me. Then, I nearly trip over a goddamn body.

My heart goes frantic and I get on my haunches, putting two fingers to the guard's throat.

Dead.

Another guard by the marble bust—alive but out cold, blood trickling from his temple.

A third sprawled at the top of the east staircase, the banister painted red where his skull met marble.

Declan's cutting through my men like they're paper dolls.

Each body is a breadcrumb leading me deeper into his maze.